THE REACH OF WAR: DEATH OF AN AGENT; Italy Rebuts U.S. Report That Cleared G.I.'s in Killing

By IAN FISHER and JOHN F. BURNS; Ian Fisher reported from Rome for this article, and John F. Burns from Baghdad. Jason Horowitz contributed reporting.

Published: May 3, 2005

Italy on Monday issued a strongly worded rebuttal to an American report clearing United States soldiers of responsibility for the shooting death of an Italian intelligence agent at a roadblock in Iraq, saying ''inexperience and stress'' on the part of the soldiers were major reasons for the agent's death.

The incident has become a major point of friction in the close relationship between the nations, and has accelerated calls here for Italy to remove its 3,000 troops from Iraq. It has also contributed to political problems for Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who agreed to station troops in Iraq despite broad opposition here. He is scheduled to address Parliament on the issue on Thursday.

The 52-page Italian report offers an exhaustive rebuttal to the American version of events, released on Saturday. Specifically, the Italian report said that an American roadblock on the road to the Baghdad airport had not been clearly visible; that the driver of the car carrying the agent had not been speeding; and that the removal of the cars involved had made it impossible to reconstruct exactly what had happened.

The report said that the car carrying the agent, Nicola Calipari, a ranking official in Italian secret services, had not been an intentional target but that ''some level of inexperience and stress could have led soldiers to reactions that were instinctive and not well controlled.''

Mr. Calipari had traveled to Iraq to secure the release of a kidnapped Italian journalist, Giuliana Sgrena. Right after she was released, Mr. Calipari and an Italian driver drove to the airport with her, in the dark on a wet road that is one of the most dangerous in Iraq, to fly back home to Italy. The car ran into the American roadblock at 8:50 p.m.

At the time of the shooting, American accounts offered few details, beyond saying the Italians' car, a Toyota sedan, approached the roadblock at high speed, failed to heed several warnings by the Americans and continued toward the roadblock even after warning shots were fired.

The American military report exonerated the seven-man team at the roadblock, including the turret gunner from the New York National Guard who fired the fatal shots, Specialist Mario Lozano. On the key issue in contention, the report concluded that nobody in the United States military command, in the American Embassy or the American forces had any warning that the Italians had freed Ms. Sgrena or that the car was headed for the airport road.

A much fuller account emerged after reporters succeeded with a few computer keystrokes in restoring large sections of the American report that had been blacked out in the version that was released by the United States command on Saturday.

The effect of restoring the censored sections was to give an even starker version of the American claim that the Italians kept the operation to free Ms. Sgrena secret from the United States command. In effect, the full report suggests that Italian secrecy was a prime component in the events.

The Italian version conceded that it was possible that the American chain of command did not know precisely why Mr. Calipari had come to Iraq or that Ms. Sgrena had been released. The report denied that this was the decisive issue, but pointed instead to problems with the American roadblock and actions of the soldiers.

''It is not clear how the eventual knowledge of the contents of the operation would have favorably affected the course of events,'' it said.

The Italian report says the roadblock, on a ramp off the highway, had been poorly placed and marked. While the American soldiers testified that the driver had been traveling at about 50 miles per hour, the Italian report cited later estimations by the driver and Ms. Sgrena that it was closer to 30 m.p.h. Given the darkness, the curve of the ramp and other circumstances, ''such a speed seems credible,'' the Italian report said.

The report also raised general questions about the ability of investigators to reconstruct what had happened since both the Italian car and the American Humvees were moved immediately after the shooting.

The American report noted that the Humvees had been used to take Ms. Sgrena to a military hospital.

In Washington and Baghdad, senior officers have suggested privately that the reason for the Italian decision to keep the American command in the dark was that Mr. Calipari and a major in Italian military intelligence -- identified in the American report as Andrea Carpani of the Italian Embassy in Baghdad, who drove the Toyota -- may have paid a ransom to the hostage takers. These officers have said there has been no hard evidence to support their suspicions, which match similar accounts that have appeared, without corroboration, in some Italian newspapers.

The American inquiry said the American aide to the Italian general serving with the American command, identified as Captain Green, learned five days earlier that a group of Italian ''V.I.P's'' would be arriving, and that they ''would be working the Sgrena hostage situation,'' but knew no more than that. The report said that 20 minutes before the shooting, the Italian officer, Maj. Gen. Mario Marioli, asked the American if he had been briefed by another Italian officer on the operation, and when Captain Green said he suspected it had something to do with Ms. Sgrena, the general replied ''Yes, but it is best if no one knows.''

''It is clear that while the hostage recovery operation may have otherwise been a success, prior coordination might have prevented this tragedy,'' the American report said.

The report said that tensions along the expressway had been heightened by 135 insurgent attacks on the road in the previous four months, and that the platoon had been informed that two suspected suicide car bombers, one in a white car and the other in a black vehicle, had been spotted in the area. The Toyota involved in the shooting of the Italian was white.